Gabriel into his office, which was just off the family room on the bottom floor. There were plenty of windows here, but Gabriel had already shut the blinds and drapes. He also didn’t turn on the lights. No doubt because it would alert anyone close enough to the house that there was someone in that particular room.
However, her brother did go to one of the windows that faced the back of the house, and he opened the blinds just enough so he could keep watch. Theo did the same to the window across from Gabriel. That one would give him a view of the side of the house. While the inside of the house was practically dark, there were security lights on the grounds, so maybe they’d be able to see this monster coming.
“Is there an extra gun in here?” Ivy asked.
“Bottom right drawer,” Gabriel quickly provided. It was locked, but he rattled off the combination, and she took out a Glock he had stashed there. She wasn’t an expert marksman, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she would use it to defend her son if necessary.
“The CI is someone who regularly gives me intel,” Theo started. “I’ll write down his name for you later. In case the place really is bugged, I don’t want to compromise his identity. The other person you’ll hear on the recording is a federal agent. He’s the one who sent me this, and the voices have been altered—again so that no one will be compromised.”
While still keeping a grip on his gun, Theo took out his phone and hit the play button. He held it up so that Gabriel would be able to hear it, and it didn’t take long before the man’s voice began to pour through the room.
“I heard some stuff,” the man said. “Stuff about them Becketts. I figured I oughta tell you because that family’s been through enough.”
Yes, they had been. The murder of their parents. Also the near murder of Gabriel’s bride-to-be, Jodi. It had changed their lives forever.
It was still changing them.
“There’s a killer coming after them,” the man went on. “I don’t know the fella’s name, but I heard him talking at the Silver Moon Bar over on St. Mary’s Street. He said he’d been hired—and these are his words, not mine—to put some more Becketts in the ground. He said he was going to the Blue River Ranch tonight to finish off as many of them as he could.”
A chill slid through Ivy, head to toe, and she felt her stomach clench into a tight knot. “God, will this never end?” she said under her breath.
Ivy clearly hadn’t said that softly enough, because it caused both Theo and her brother to look back at her. Theo hit Pause. He stared at her as if he might need to intervene in some way. Definitely not something she wanted. Nor did she want to give in to the fear. So she went to the window next to Theo in order to help him keep watch.
Theo continued to look at her while he volleyed glances out the window, but he finally hit the play button again.
“Describe the man who said that.” It was a second person on the recording. Theo’s fellow agent, no doubt. “And did he say who hired him?”
“Didn’t mention a word about that,” the CI answered. “Of course, it wouldn’t have been too smart if he had. And I couldn’t exactly ask him without maybe gettin’ my own self killed. But he was tall, bulky. Built like one of those navy SEALs or something.”
Theo looked at Gabriel then, and her brother nodded. “That matches the description of the man the ranch hand saw.”
“How do you know this hired gun is for real?” the agent asked the CI.
“’Cause he knew things, that’s why. Things about Sheriff Sherman Beckett and his wife, Millie, who got killed ten years ago. It was all over the news, but this fella told me there was something the news didn’t mention. Something that the cops kept out of the papers. He said the killer took Sherman Beckett’s watch. Pulled it right off his dead wrist. And that he took Millie’s necklace. It was a heart-shaped locket and had pictures of her kids in it.”
It was true. All true. Those items had indeed been missing, though they hadn’t been found on the killer, Theo’s father, Travis. Ivy had always assumed that Travis had dropped them or hidden them somewhere, but how would this man have known that?
That didn’t help the knot in her stomach, and Ivy had to fight to hang on to what little composure she had left. She had prayed this was all some kind of misunderstanding, that the CI had been wrong, but apparently no such luck. There really was a killer headed to the house who had plans to finish them all off.
“Did this hired gun say anything else?” the agent pressed. “Anything that would help us figure out who’s paying him to do this?”
“Nope, but I figure it’s gotta be Travis Canton. Yeah, I know he’s in jail, but something like this could get him out from behind bars.”
Theo didn’t say anything, but even in the near darkness, she saw his jaw tighten. “I’ve already checked with the prison,” Theo volunteered, “and other than his lawyer, my father hasn’t had any visitors in the past week. Plus, he doesn’t have the funds to hire a hit man.”
So maybe this was the work of some kind of psycho groupie. There’d been so much interest in the murders, partly because Jodi had also been attacked and left for dead in a shallow grave. And all that interest had attracted some very sick people.
“I know you gotta tell this to the Becketts,” the CI went on a moment later, “but you oughta be careful when you do it. The fella at the bar said he’d put bugs in the sheriff’s place and his house. So if you say anything to them, sure as hell don’t mention my name. I don’t want that SOB comin’ after me.”
“That’s the end of the conversation,” Theo told them. “But you can see why I had to come.”
Yes, she could. Since the CI had been right about the hired killer, maybe he was right about that bug, too. It sickened her to think that someone had been spying on them, listening to their every word. Someone who now wanted to kill them.
Her brother must have realized that, too, because he cursed and fired off a text. Several seconds later, his phone buzzed. He set it aside and put it on speaker, no doubt to keep his hands free for his gun.
“Sorry, Gabriel,” the caller immediately said. It was Aiken Colley, one of Gabriel’s ranch hands. “But we lost sight of the guy.”
That was not what Ivy wanted to hear, and she made a frantic search of every part of the grounds that she could see. No signs of a gunman. No signs of anyone.
Gabriel cursed. “Where was he when you last saw him?”
“By the south barn.”
That wasn’t that far from the house. Worse, there were other outbuildings and fences between the house and that particular barn, and this man could use those to conceal himself so he could get closer.
“I never had a clean shot of him,” Aiken went on. “The guy was running, and every few seconds, he would duck behind cover. Jake and Teddy are out here with me, and I’ve alerted the other hands.”
Jake and Teddy were two other hands, and while none of the hands were in law enforcement, they all knew how to handle guns. But apparently this hired killer knew how to dodge those guns.
“If possible, I want
